Probiotics

Can Probiotics Help You Lose Weight?

Find out what the latest research suggests

Can Probiotics Help You Lose Weight?Find out what the latest research suggests

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You've heard that probiotics contain all sorts of nutrients that help you stay healthy. And as it turns out, probiotics could help you lose weight, too, according to a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

For the study, researchers from Laval University in Quebec instructed 125 overweight men and women to follow a 12-week weight-loss diet, followed by a 12-week maintenance period. Half of the participants also swallowed probiotic pills every day, and the other half got placebo pills.

What happened? After the 12-week weight-loss period, the women who took the probiotic pills had lost 9.7 pounds, on average, while the women who took the placebos only lost 5.7 pounds. And then, after the 12-week maintenance period, the women who took the placebo pills maintained a stable weight—but the probiotics group continued to slim down, losing 1.8 more pounds, on average. By the study's end, the women in the probiotics group also had less of the intestinal bacteria related to obesity in their systems. Interestingly, the probiotics didn't have a significant effect on the men in the study.

Study authors believe that probiotics may help you slim down because they make your intestinal walls less permeable. As a result, fewer of the molecules that may contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and glucose intolerance are able to enter your bloodstream. To get the slimming effect, the researchers suggest eating more foods that contain probiotics (like yogurt) and following a healthy diet that's low in fat and high in fiber.